Tuesday, April 27, 2010

"What are your plans now that you are done with high school?" a famous quote that all graduating seniors are sure to get asked on their graduation day. Many will say they are going to college, while a few others are going into the military or working after their high school career.

The commencement date for all 52 Goodhue High School seniors is on June 6, 2010. While looking at the garduation party sheet, a lot of people have decided to either have their parties on June 5th or on the commencement day, June 6th. Some people have chosen to have their grad parties early, such as Brady Vieths on May 22nd, and others want to have their parties later, such as Grace Majerus on June 19th. While interviewing Peter Watson, a soon-to-be Marine, he stated, "I am having my graudation on May 31st because my mom has that day off from work." Karla Ryan on the other han gis having her graduation party on June 6th after the commencement so her family can go to both the commencement and her party on the same day. Be sure to make an appearance at all the grad parties for this year's 2010 graduating class.

This year's Wildcat baseball team has improved much from last year and has hope for doing well this year. Brian Strauss says, “ We are very optimistic this year and hoping to learn from last year's performance.” This season is pretty similar from other years, few players, and same head coach Bob Bitzen. Some differences about this year are a few new players. Struass says, “ I am very exctied for the Eries to come back and we really need them this year in order to be successful.” some other new members to the varsity line up from last year are Jordan Grecco, Brady Veiths, and Andy Johnson. When asked about their goals Strauss replied, “ I think our biggest goal is to be above .500.” Strauss, who has been playing on varsity since 9th grade, is one of the Wildcats best players. He can go from being a all star infielder to throwing rockets down the plate he is definitely one player who you should be watching for on the Wildcats baseball team.

Teen drinking. Teen Sex. STD’s. Teen Drug use. Good choices. What’s your story? These were things that speaker John Crudele talked about with the entire Goodhue High School on Wednesday, April 14. He also shared personal stories. Students at Goodhue High School enjoyed listening to guest speaker Crudele. He talked about many things and had a lot of different stories. He has spoken to over 2,000,000 adults and teens across the entire country. His main point that he got across to us was, “What’s your story?” What he means by this is your life is what you make of it. What you do now in the present writes your past and also affects your future. The bad choices you make today will affect you forever. Crudele also talked about how you have a hard time remembering a lie when you can easily remember the truth. It is hard to keep a lie inside. Another point he had was about how when we are young we think of others a lot more than when we get older. We start to focus on how we can get things for ourselves and not care about others. Still many of us need what others can give to us. We need to help others when we can and not just think of ourselves because then in return others will do the same back to you. Everything you do will come back to you. If you put down others to make yourself feel better others will put you right back down and you end up feeling worse than you did to start.So help others. Make good choices. Your life is what you make it.

People limping around on their crutch. Some hurting under their arms. Others' battle wounds hurting. All of these people are on crutches for a reason, some received surgery like Mike Austin who says that one leg was longer than the other so he got his left leg shortened so now they are both the same. He had to go through three or more weeks of not even being able to move his left leg. Austin said that the worst part about having crutches is the pain under his arms from the crutches. “Walking around a big school must have to suck, even getting around at this small school can be hard at some points,” said senior Austin. When going through the lunch line at school Austin and all the other kids on crutches need help carrying there trays through, so I asked if it was difficult to find someone to do this? Austin said ,“No, not really at all. Most people love to help, I guess it’s because it gets them out of class early.” 1025 feet...this is how many feet it is from down in Bestul's shop to the lunch room (or gym 1). Some people on crutches have to walk this far, then go almost all the way back.Even just walking from one class to the next, one needs help carrying your books and other objects. Why just today, Nathan Voth had to help Courtney Hinsch carry her books to her locker because her hands are full lugging those crutches around. I’m not saying that we should do anything about it except for tell people to be more carefulwhen doing things so they don’t have to carry this burden for a few very long weeks. When you have someone you know using crutches, you may want to help them get around the school because trust me they need it.

Friday, April 23, 2010

The sun is shining. Spring is here. Kids are outside. Have you guessed it?… it’s time for the Community Clean up day at Goodhue High School. Every year the Goodhue High School students have participated in Community Clean up day. This event is held in the spring around April or May. During this day, the senior high students rake people’s lawns, wash their windows, and pick up sticks. The lawns that get chosen are usually people that are in need and can’t do it themselves. Students travel around town and they also get bused to the rural locations. Some students travel as far as twenty miles. Raking rural lawns makes it possible for all of us to go out and get a full day of work in. “This has been taking place for about 20 years now, and every year it has gone well and the community is very pleased with the students efforts to make our community cleaner,” said Mr. Ed Stern. Community service day will be held on April 30, 2010. The school usually cleans up around 120 different locations. This year is looking to be a full days work. Students will not only be just raking lawns and picking up sticks, they will be planting flowers in different locations, helping get our athletic fields looking better, and also cleaning up the different parks around town. Goodhue High School doesn’t receive anything for this day except the kids get a good experience with helping out and the elderly are thankful for our help so their lawns can look great. “This day is very rewarding to the kids, because if you attend this you can attend Mini Day,” said Maggie Lexvold a student council member.

It’s time again this year for the yearly trip to the Chanhassen. This year it is going to take place on Wednesday, May 21, 2010. It’s located in Chanhassen, Minnesota. “These plays are always top notch, because there equity actors or union actors,” says O.R. There are about 27 students going this year, which is a little less than normal. O.R has been going for about 30 years, and the wonderful plays that keep you interested the whole time is what makes her come back every year. You are provided a meal when you go, “It’s a pretty decent meal,” O.R says. The cost is $47.00, this includes your meal. The play that we are going to be seeing this year is Foot Loose. This is a commonly known movie that most kids have seen so it should be a pretty good play that will keep the kids interested. O.R’s favorite play that she has seen over the years is Phantom of the Opera. The theatre is for the most part old and it has a lot of add on’s. Overall I think that this is a very good opportunity for kids and that you should really encourage kids to go. After watching the play, I agree with everything that people say about it. It was very good and really had your attention the whole time. They had really talented singers.

Biology. English. Algebra. Literature. Geometry. History. All these, and many more, are possible subjects of questions that you may come across at a Knowledge Bowl Meet.

Knowledge Bowl is an academic competition involving teams of four to five students. The teams compete against each other in written and oral rounds. The written exam is a multiple choice test that all members of a team can work together on. After completing the written round, teams move on to the oral rounds. There are usually three to five oral rounds, depending where the meet is located. An oral round consists of three teams in a room with an adult reader. Each team has a buzzer that they can buzz anytime when the adult leader is reading the question. “Sometimes teams buzz in when the reader has only read three words and they get it right!” exclaimed Karen O’Connor. Karen, a senior, has been involved with Knowledge Bowl since her freshman year, when her friends urged her to join. “Although I don’t take Knowledge Bowl that seriously, like some people, I really enjoy it. It’s a great chance to get out of school and be with my friends, and I really love the shopping afterwards!” O’Connor stated.

An oral round consists of 30 questions. When asked what kind of questions are asked in an oral round, Carolyn Johnson, a junior, stated “There are questions about anything and everything!” Johnson has been with Knowledge Bowl since her seventh grade year. Her hard work has paid off this year when her team, consisting of Michelle Poncelet, Jon Schmitz, and Kaleb Luhman, got third place in the Sub-Regional’s and fourth at Regional’s. “We were only four points away from going to state!” she exclaimed.

This year Goodhue had 21 members on its Senior High Knowledge Bowl team and 23 on its Junior High team. Knowledge Bowl is coached by Dawn Austin.

“Together we have experienced life, separately we will pursue our dreams, and forever our memories will remain.” The class of 2010 chose this for our motto. Our class, of 52 students, will be waiting for the day to come to receive our diplomas and begin our new journey of our lives. The Iris is the flower we have chose to represent our class. The colors we chose are purple, black, and silver. “It was hard to please everyone with the decisions we had to make for graduation,” stated senior class president, Dani Ramthun. Dani has been our president for three years. Our class officers are Jessica Earp as vice president, secretary is Ann Dicke, and treasurer, Laura Ramboldt.An example of trying to make everyone happy is our senior shirts. We had a lot of discussion about the designs we wanted, but no one could decide on what they wanted. We had lots of designs but could not agree on anything. We finally decided to do something simple that everyone would like and if they didn’t too bad. We decided with a black shirt with “Seniors 2010” on the front and the back said, “…because we couldn’t agree on anything else”. Shelby Augustine and Brandon Hadler are the two seniors we voted to speak at our graduation. We all know that day will be very rewarding and I know some tears will be shed on this day.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Winter blues. Prom. Acne. Health Reasons. Vacation. These are reasons many Goodhue High School students and teachers have chosen to use tanning beds throughout the year. There are good outcomes of using indoor tanning, but some of the long term results can be very harmful to one’s health. Indoor tanning has great short term results, the most common reasons people go tanning is for darker and clearer skin which many Goodhue High School students and teachers have realized. Some go tanning for other reasons; Goodhue High School teacher Mrs. LaGosh said, “I love tanning because it is so relaxing!” While senior Jess Earp stated, “I tan because it is relaxing and makes me look beautiful!”One thing that many haven’t put into consideration though is the long-term health risks of tanning. When you tan indoors, you are shooting high doses of UV rays at your skin. These rays come in two types, UVA and UVB. UVB rays cause the skin to burn and only affect the top layer of the skin, the epidermis. The other type, UVA, is what makes the skin tan. UVA rays penetrate deeper into the skin which can cause damage to your nerves and blood vessels. When sending these rays into your skin you put yourself at risk for things such as wrinkly skin in the future and even skin cancer. The three types of skin cancer a person can get from tanning are basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma. You might think getting cancer in the skin is not very serious; you are wrong. Melanoma can be extremely deadly if not found and treated early. It is important that Goodhue High School students know what tanning puts them at risk for. Knowing the facts can influence many people like senior, Katelyn Diercks, who stated, “I don’t tan because I know of all the health risks that comes along with it. I don’t want to put myself at risk for cancer!”

Swimming at the beach, eating cold ice cream at Dairy Queen, knitting a blanket, and sky diving out a plane. Sounds like a pretty average day right? Well what if I said swimming at the beach with your friends, eating ice cream at Dairy Queen with your friends, knitting blankets with your friends, and sky diving with friends, friends you will probably never see again. Now I bet you’re thinking those two words you loved to hear about when you were a kid “SENIOR SKIP DAY!”

Blayne Erie a senior at Goodhue Public High School says he can’t wait to skip this year, enthusiastically telling me he will just flat out skip and play videogames or read a book. Hoping that all of his fellow classmates skip with him, Blayne Erie has heard of some sweet stories of past seniors that have really have him jacked up for his skip day. One story for example, the seniors went Valleyfair and enjoyed a nice day of fun in the sun. Like everything, there have been bad skip days. Take last years seniors, for example, none of them skipped because of poor planning. Blayne is ecstatic to go to college and ditch out of high school so he can continue his basketball career that we all wish we had “cough” and meet new people.

“My mother would have ripped me a new one!” Yes that quote came from my favorite teacher anonymous who by the way graduated back in the B.C. era haha. Anonymous never had a skip day. Knowing that skip day is just wrong, this high moral teacher said he would have gone to the Minnesota Zoo for a good time!

All in all Senior Skip day is a day where all seniors can get together and enjoy one more day together before splitting up and going separate ways to college.

Clash of the Titans...More Like...Flop of the TitansBy Brandon HadlerThis movie of the week has sparked a concern that I have about movies designed to portray Greek mythology. The movie that I will be reviewing today is Louis Leterrier's Clash of the Titans. This movie was nothing short of disappointing. Clash of the Titans started slow telling you how the people of Argos were fed up with the gods and no longer wanted them. The gods didn’t like this because Zeus and the gods of Olympus need the prayers of the people to be strong and live forever. Hades, on the other hand, needs people to show fear in order to be strong. So in turn, Hades gets sent by Zeus to spread fear amongst the people of Argos in hope that the humans Zeus has created will pray again. Argos's Savior is a Demigod "half human half god" Perseus (Worthington) enraged by the killing of his foster parents goes on a quest with soldiers and a desert dwelling magician to find the Sisters of Fate and find out how to defeat the Kraken. Now that you know the plot, here is why this movie is awful.1. God of War- The whole time while watching this Greek Mythology disaster movie I thought about the video game series God of War, and in doing so, I expected awesome kill moves and epic fight scenes. The only time there was an epic fight scene was at the end when Perseus held up the head of Medusa to freeze the Kraken, and even after that I have still seen better. In the game, God of War there are sweet kill moves. Also in the game, there are at least gods and titans whereas in Clash of the Titans, there are ZERO titans. In the movie you only see the gods chilling in an open space, while the main focus and attention is on Zeus's shining amour. The name is just awful for what the movie is about. It might as well have been called Perseus's Boring Excursion. Here's another thing, Harpies are shown in the movie as Hades's minions where Harpies are really Ares's minions. The whole time I was outraged at how you didn't get to see gods such as Posiden or Ares. There was no action. It was like watching Monty Python with no comedy! There was no depth of plot, characters, or anything else. I thought the sex scene between Zeus and Danae (Perseus's real mother) was dumb. What was the point for Zeus to come down from Olympus and bang Danae? Which left me scratching my head. Plus there was no depth explaining the war between the Argonauts and the magicians of the desert. Oh, and another thing the girl, followed Perseus around since he was born. Doesn't that sound a little bit familiar to the Titan Who talks Kratos through everything? Just saying!

Visual Effects- After watching this movie, I was left wondering why they would leave out so many fight scenes that could have at least maybe saved this movie! Even Lord of the Rings which was made what...FIVE YEARS AGO had better affects than this movie! There was no feeling of epicness. It was oh let’s fight off some stupid scorpions that we eventually end up riding! What’s with that? Just kill the dirty mongrels and do it in style, baby!Character Backgrounds- All we got to do was watch Perseus say how much he hates the gods and be followed on a quest to eventually get to Medusa. By the way, everyone dies...really? Give me some background, make me cheer for Perseus and his men, and make it so I care about the heck is going on. Every time something happened it just skipped to the next task that got put on Perseus with out any sense of emotion. Overall, this is a very poorly put together movie that got a lot of hype at the box office this week. I encourage you to not go to this movie. Save your ten dollars or whatever it is. Wait for something better because it is an absolute disappointment! Trust me, Greek mythology has so many stories to it that Clash of the Titans ruins it with a non-action filled movie.

“For a small school, we have some pretty good (sport) options,” states Cheryl Peters, a Goodhue junior. However, she also believes that, “we should offer cross country.” This is what many people think here at Goodhue. Cross country would be an inexpensive option for Goodhue. We already have the bike trail that can be used and there is not much else that is needed, just the participants! “There are quite a few people I have heard say they would be in cross country if it was an option,” claims Peters. Cross country is a sport for both boys and girls, so there would still be even distribution of sports for each sex. In addition to cross country, Peter Watson, a Goodhue senior, thinks that La Crosse should be another choice. “It’s the game with sticks that have nets and then you whack each other with them,” Watson says. Although I believe that his description of the game is a little off, it would be interesting to have it as an option here at Goodhue. It is both a men and women’s sport which is played either spring or fall. “Goodhue should get cross country, that would be awesome,” claims Watson.

Mini DayBy Jess EarpAfter eight months of homework, tests, a long day of raking, and washing windows, it’s time for you to have some fun! This May, we will be loading a bus and off to a day of fun filled activities. Many new activities have been added to this year’s activity lineup. What will you chose?For ten years mini day has been an award for those who participated in the community clean up day in April. Previous activities were the Waterpark of America, ice skating and a movie, and Mall of America. Every year new activities are added to enhance the fun. This year the new activity is Valleyfair in place of Mall of America. Other activities are Nybos Bowling and the YMCA, the fishing float, Grand Slam, golfing, and 3rd Layer. Though it is not certain you will get into your first choice activity because of seniority, everyone is bound to have a good time.This year mini day will be held on Friday, May 21st. The cost of the events varies from $8 to $30. If the individual cannot come up with the money to pay for the event the school will cover it for them. There are restrictions on who may attend this event. Laura Watson, Student Council President explains, “Those who have unexcused absences on community clean-up day may not be able to come. This trip is a reward for all the hard work put into making community clean-up day a success, it wouldn’t be fair for those who skipped to be able to go.”The student council has worked hard to make this day happen, so as thanks to the hard work put into this day, don’t skip community clean up day and come have a fun at an activity of your choice. May is just around the corner, and with so many events to pick from, it is time to start thinking about what activity you might choose.